Dependence on the narcissistic resource in relationships
Earlier I said that narcissists envy people with even greater levels of narcissism than their own. It is not surprising that individuals who dwell in the pole of insignificance and unworthiness, often choose the most real, grandiose narcissists as their partners. It is easy to idealize them, they are gorgeous and broadcast the kind of “self-love” that the latent narcissist can only dream of. And how can he possess all this wealth he never dreamed of? By joining with someone who has these qualities in abundance and trying to improve himself at his expense!
You are beautiful — I am part of you — therefore I am beautiful too.
Any narcissist reinforces his self-esteem at the expense of his narcissistic resource. He needs those around him to admire him, to talk about his virtues, to “inflate” and “expand” his greatness. Due to this he manages to stay afloat, remaining for himself, if not good, then quite successfully pretending to be such and inspire people’s admiration. And who can passionately and wholeheartedly give narcissistic resource, idealizing the person? Of course, the truest narcissist! Secret narcissists have a sniff for grandiosity. Among thousands and millions of people they can unmistakably find and choose someone who unconsciously awakens in them the hope to become self-sufficient, normal, eliminate their deficit and calm down. When you meet a flamboyantly grandiose narcissist, it seems as if they can give you access to their “treasures”: pride, dignity, splendor. They are seductive to deficient daffodils, so much so that they flock to their overtly expressive “brethren” like moths to a bright light.
This is fragments from the forthcoming book “Fragile People: A Secret Door to the World of Narcissists”
To publish and finish the book I need your support. I’ll be glad to have your help. https://www.buymeacoffee.com/FragilePeople/
Little Daffodil fell in love forever each time. Passion boiled and bubbled, and the chosen one was the best. In the evening he threw the whole world, the stars and the moon at her feet. All night she flew on wings, feeling herself the most valuable woman on earth and the object of desire of such a magnificent man. True, in the morning he would take it all back and go away, offended that Narcissochka had brewed him coffee of the wrong strength.
All day long Narcissotchka had been dying of a loss that felt somewhere in the neighborhood of self-esteem. She smoked cigarettes one after another, berating herself for not listening to her mother and not taking a cooking class for nothing. And then he’d call her, throwing stars at her feet again. With him, she felt like the woman she had never been before.
That’s how she lived. Passionately.
In the end, of course, seduced by this morass suffer from devaluation and mistreatment of themselves, and then resentfully leave to create a group of victims of narcissists. But one must realize that the unconscious choice is a kind of chance for compensation: the deficit narcissist longs to possess what the grandiose narcissist has in outward manifestation. Arrogance, superiority, and ostentatious self-sufficiency. Of course, this is very desirable to get!
By entering into relationships with grandiose personalities, deficit narcissists receive self-esteem reinforcement through love, admiration, recognition, and attention.
And the more grandiose the person who “inflates” self-esteem in this way, the greater the narcissistic pleasure and passion in the relationship. After the first wave of courtship, adoration and admiration subsides, the latent narcissist begins to feel anxious. Worries begin: where has that which filled him so pleasantly gone? Where has the feeling of “I’m all right now” disappeared to? He begins to feel homesick and bored. How can that be? Where did the vivid experiences that also confirmed my importance and uniqueness, due to which I was chosen by such a grand and magnificent man, disappear?
But if the partner goes away and leaves the deficit narcissist alone with emptiness and boredom, chances are that the one will have the most real “withdrawal”. Just like an addict. How many times have I heard stories in which women told me how happy they were in a relationship and how beautiful, interesting and successful they felt. But then the one they loved left — and all that feeling fell apart in an instant. And an endless whirlwind began: the “beloved” came, shared the “narcissistic value” and left again, and the woman was left with a feeling of even more terrible nothingness than she had before this meeting. Or, unable to endure the sudden emptiness and longing for the self she had come to know through the narcissist, the woman urgently searched for a replacement. Any compensation will do: quick connections, casual sex, flirting, new relationships. Anything that proves to her that she is still capable of attracting men, that she still has her value.
When I ask my clients what you are afraid of in this breakup, they sincerely answer: loneliness. But after some questioning, the outlines of the trap that will appear after the departure of the “beloved” and so frightens the hidden narcissist become clearer. There the fear is not of loneliness, but of the emptiness and boredom that will come over the person again. The terror of having to fill that emptiness again, of experiencing that narcissistic hunger again. And all of this is unbearable.
Of course, in the place of the grandiose narcissist can be any person who perhaps sincerely knows how to love and care. It’s just that the option already described fits the deficit more. A healthy person is unlikely to attract a latent narcissist, because in a relationship with him you will not experience a whirlwind of emotions, he will give no reason for idealization or for its collapse, will not be able to fill the narcissistic hole in such a way and will not give any false hopes.
It is very important for deficit narcissists to learn to:
- to notice which manifestations of narcissistic grandiosity are so attractive to them in people;
- reflect on previous experiences in which there was far more damage to self-esteem from relationships with grandiose narcissists than pleasure and joy;
- pause between the moment of attraction to an attractive person and the actual rapprochement.
This is fragments from the forthcoming book “Fragile People: A Secret Door to the World of Narcissists”
To publish and finish the book I need your support. I’ll be glad to have your help. https://www.buymeacoffee.com/FragilePeople/
